Pilar Garrigosa views jewelry as objects of art. They are pieces to wear on the body and clothing, of course. But they can also be displayed on walls and shelves. Thus, in her home in Barcelona, a framed necklace by Gilles Jonemann hangs on the wall next to a painting by Guerrero Medina. And a bracelet by that same cult French creator becomes a fascinating sculpture on a shelf, next to books and family photographs. With brooches from the great designers of the Padua School and her own designs, she creates compositions on the nightstands in her bedroom. The brooch, she specifies, is her favorite accessory and she varies it every day. Four necklaces that are sure to make the wearer the center of attention adorn the padded wall of the dressing table.
Garrigosa is the largest collector of contemporary designer jewelry in our country, as well as a designer and gallerist. She began studying gemology when she had her children grown up with her. Although her father, who collected minerals, had already inoculated him with that passionate streak of hers. “I look at the stones and they speak to me,” she says. It is from her materiality that she has always developed her brooches, necklaces, rings. Among her favorites: fire opal and boulder. “I like stones that have some inclusion inside them. Where two different minerals have crystallized,” she points out.
Later he would attend the jewelry workshops at the Massana School led by Professor Carles Codina. There he learned the technique and art of melting metals, stretching them, turning them into threads or setting precious stones. In addition to complete freedom of action. “Carles Codina let me do what I wanted from day one. Also turning the stones upside down,” he recalls. And he set up the workshop in his own house, where he has always melted the gold, with his own mixture, in the crucible.
The definitive fascination, however, came with the School of Padua (by the authors trained at the Scuola Pietro Selvatico), considered the great innovator of contemporary jewelry in the second half of the 20th century. After inviting Giampaolo Babetto, one of its greatest exponents, to teach some courses in Barcelona, she traveled to the Italian city where a new world opened up to her.
With the School of Padua he discovered the introduction of architectural plans and a different vision of the jewel in space, which took into account the human anatomy. The precision and delicacy in the invention of closures, almost invisible. The resounding commitment to geometry. Or the unusual treatment of gold: with finishes such as unpolished matte or niello (formerly used in mourning jewelry), a black coating on gold that represented its total negation. “Sometimes the gold was hidden. You didn't have to show ostentation,” he clarifies.
“It was the Italians from Padua who pushed me to open the Magari gallery in Barcelona, during the nineties,” he explains. Located in the Raval neighborhood near Macba and specialized in contemporary jewelry, he baptized it with this name that he heard constantly in Italy and did not initially know what it meant. With successful openings, even Boadas dedicated the Magari cocktail to him. That "maybe" or "perhaps" became a small sanctuary dedicated to the most innovative and radical jewelry, although not suitable for all budgets or all sensibilities. Well, only a minority of those who could access it understood. “This doesn't bother me,” he remembers with a smile that they told him.
Pilar slides the successive drawers of the furniture originally designed for the Magari gallery by the architect Norman Cinnamond – who later became her husband – where she can display and store this portable art. Her contemporary jewelry collection covers two hundred pieces: an unusual multicultural universe of more than thirty authors from twenty different countries that dazzles. Drawers that also house the jewelry designed by Garrigosa herself, where she gives the stone the leading role. Her fascination with her gems has led her to collect them all over the world, appreciating colors, tones, textures and searching for her color planes as if they were paintings. Garrigous, lively and active with an artistic vision of the world and life, today she finds her main practice in painting. In addition to confessing that she is hooked on contemporary art classes and the geopolitics of the Middle East.
Recently the Misui space, in Barcelona, dedicated an exhibition to the designs of Pilar Garrigosa, accompanied by a selection of her collection from the Padua School that she considers has marked her professionally and vitally. Her collecting spirit comes from afar. She has also been an enthusiastic hat and box collector. As a child she started a collection of owls. Although it became so extensive that at the farewell party at her previous house (eight years ago), before moving to the current one, she threw a big party and invited the guests to take one each. Regarding her exceptional cataloged collection of contemporary jewelry, she comments, “I would like to give it to a museum and have it displayed so that everyone can enjoy it.”
